Room of Doors

We are all excited about the Alice movie. If we weren't, we wouldn't be on this spot. But is it really Alice's story anymore?

My friend, her sister, and I were at the cinema together seeing the Lightning Thief movie. As we left the theater, we were confronted by a huge poster for Alice in Wonderland with a crazy-big neon-bright image of the Mad Hatter on it. My friend's sister said "If it's called Alice in Wonderland, the why is there only a picture of the Hatter on the poster?"

It's a reasonable question, and one that really made me think. Of all the posters I had seen promoting Tim Burton's...

Q: Your upcoming Alice looks like it might be a more adult interpretation, considering she's meant to be 19...

A: With Alice, the imagery has been around for so long, it's so iconic. The problem with the books is that they're episodic and kind of random events that the movies have always suffered from the idea of a passive little girl going, "Oh, that's weird. Oh, I'm shrinking! Oh, I'm growing! I say!" So the goal was to try and take that imagery and be true to it but make it a new movie. So she's older, which puts in context. That's what's always been missing.

I think, with all these stories,...